The introduction suggests that exploration into Reformation theology can help flesh out an underexplained truism in early modern race studies: the inextricable link between race and religion. The ...
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The introduction suggests that exploration into Reformation theology can help flesh out an underexplained truism in early modern race studies: the inextricable link between race and religion. The introduction then considers how a simultaneous “turn to religion” and to historical formalism opens avenues for examining early modern literary responses to an emergent theology of race. Finally, it provides a brief history of the infidel-conversion motif in romances by medieval and early modern Roman Catholic writers, showing how Chanson de Roland, “The Captive’s Tale” in Don Quixote, The King of Tars, and other romances uphold Catholic notions of baptism’s unquestionable ability to create Christian identity.Less

Not Turning the Ethiope White

Dennis Austin Britton

Published in print: 2014-04-03

The introduction suggests that exploration into Reformation theology can help flesh out an underexplained truism in early modern race studies: the inextricable link between race and religion. The introduction then considers how a simultaneous “turn to religion” and to historical formalism opens avenues for examining early modern literary responses to an emergent theology of race. Finally, it provides a brief history of the infidel-conversion motif in romances by medieval and early modern Roman Catholic writers, showing how Chanson de Roland, “The Captive’s Tale” in Don Quixote,The King of Tars, and other romances uphold Catholic notions of baptism’s unquestionable ability to create Christian identity.

Thinking Its Presence: Form, Race, and Subjectivity in Contemporary Asian American Poetry argues against reductive modes of reading Asian American poetry. The book builds its case by focusing with ...
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Thinking Its Presence: Form, Race, and Subjectivity in Contemporary Asian American Poetry argues against reductive modes of reading Asian American poetry. The book builds its case by focusing with great particularity on the writings of five contemporary Asian American poets who range in age from their early forties to late sixties—Li-Young Lee, Marilyn Chin, John Yau, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, and Pamela Lu—and whose poems represent a spectrum of literary styles, from expressive lyric to less transparently representational and more formally experimental. Each poet’s body of work is considered in turn through detailed readings, a formal crux or mode (metaphor, irony, parody, a syntax of contingency, the subjunctive mood) whose deployment is central to his or her poetic project and whose structure articulates and enacts in language the poet’s working out of a larger political (in the broadest sense of that term) and/or poetic concern or question. By doing intensive and serious readings of these particular Asian American poets’ use of language and linguistic forms this book aims to show how erroneous we have been to view Asian American poetry through a simplistic, reductive, and essentializing lens: as a homogenous lump of ’nonliterary’ writing by ’Asians.’Less

Thinking Its Presence : Form, Race, and Subjectivity in Contemporary Asian American Poetry

Dorothy J. Wang

Published in print: 2013-12-04

Thinking Its Presence: Form, Race, and Subjectivity in Contemporary Asian American Poetry argues against reductive modes of reading Asian American poetry. The book builds its case by focusing with great particularity on the writings of five contemporary Asian American poets who range in age from their early forties to late sixties—Li-Young Lee, Marilyn Chin, John Yau, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, and Pamela Lu—and whose poems represent a spectrum of literary styles, from expressive lyric to less transparently representational and more formally experimental. Each poet’s body of work is considered in turn through detailed readings, a formal crux or mode (metaphor, irony, parody, a syntax of contingency, the subjunctive mood) whose deployment is central to his or her poetic project and whose structure articulates and enacts in language the poet’s working out of a larger political (in the broadest sense of that term) and/or poetic concern or question. By doing intensive and serious readings of these particular Asian American poets’ use of language and linguistic forms this book aims to show how erroneous we have been to view Asian American poetry through a simplistic, reductive, and essentializing lens: as a homogenous lump of ’nonliterary’ writing by ’Asians.’

A daring cultural and literary studies investigation, this book explores the legacy of unresolved grief produced by ongoing racial oppression and resistance in the United States. Using analysis of ...
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A daring cultural and literary studies investigation, this book explores the legacy of unresolved grief produced by ongoing racial oppression and resistance in the United States. Using analysis of literature, drama, musical performance, and film, the book demonstrates how rituals of racialization and resistance transfer and transform grief discreetly across time, consolidating racial identities and communities along the way. It also argues that this form of impossible mourning binds racialized identities across time and social space by way of cultural resistance efforts. The book develops the concept of “cultural melancholy” as a critical response to scholarship that calls for the clinical separation of critical race studies and psychoanalysis; excludes queer theoretical approaches from readings of African American literatures and cultures; and overlooks the status of racialized performance culture as a site of serious academic inquiry and theorization. In doing so, the book weaves critical race studies, psychoanalysis, queer theory, and performance studies into conversation to uncover a host of hidden dialogues—psychic and social, personal and political, individual and collective—for the purpose of promoting a culture of racial grieving, critical race consciousness, and collective agency.Less

Jermaine Singleton

Published in print: 2015-11-01

A daring cultural and literary studies investigation, this book explores the legacy of unresolved grief produced by ongoing racial oppression and resistance in the United States. Using analysis of literature, drama, musical performance, and film, the book demonstrates how rituals of racialization and resistance transfer and transform grief discreetly across time, consolidating racial identities and communities along the way. It also argues that this form of impossible mourning binds racialized identities across time and social space by way of cultural resistance efforts. The book develops the concept of “cultural melancholy” as a critical response to scholarship that calls for the clinical separation of critical race studies and psychoanalysis; excludes queer theoretical approaches from readings of African American literatures and cultures; and overlooks the status of racialized performance culture as a site of serious academic inquiry and theorization. In doing so, the book weaves critical race studies, psychoanalysis, queer theory, and performance studies into conversation to uncover a host of hidden dialogues—psychic and social, personal and political, individual and collective—for the purpose of promoting a culture of racial grieving, critical race consciousness, and collective agency.

The introduction establishes the significance of the era studied and provides a brief overview of the formation of mixed families on both sides of the Pacific. It introduces “negotiated identity” as ...
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The introduction establishes the significance of the era studied and provides a brief overview of the formation of mixed families on both sides of the Pacific. It introduces “negotiated identity” as the conceptual framework for the book's chapters. The introduction further addresses the tension inherent in “traveling between” China studies and Asian American studies and discusses the changing history of the study of mixed race.Less

Introduction

Emma Jinhua Teng

Published in print: 2013-07-13

The introduction establishes the significance of the era studied and provides a brief overview of the formation of mixed families on both sides of the Pacific. It introduces “negotiated identity” as the conceptual framework for the book's chapters. The introduction further addresses the tension inherent in “traveling between” China studies and Asian American studies and discusses the changing history of the study of mixed race.

This chapter introduces copyright as a legal institution and addresses the problems particular to copyright for choreography. It places notions of choreography and copyright in dialogue with one ...
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This chapter introduces copyright as a legal institution and addresses the problems particular to copyright for choreography. It places notions of choreography and copyright in dialogue with one another by comparing how issues of materiality, dis/embodiment, and in/alienability play out within intellectual property and within choreography. It also establishes the racial and gendered dimensions of property rights and locates the book at the intersection of dance studies, critical race and gender studies, and cultural studies of copyright.Less

Introduction : Dance Plus Copyright

Anthea Kraut

Published in print: 2015-12-01

This chapter introduces copyright as a legal institution and addresses the problems particular to copyright for choreography. It places notions of choreography and copyright in dialogue with one another by comparing how issues of materiality, dis/embodiment, and in/alienability play out within intellectual property and within choreography. It also establishes the racial and gendered dimensions of property rights and locates the book at the intersection of dance studies, critical race and gender studies, and cultural studies of copyright.

One of Michael Jackson’s hit singles has the consistent line in its chorus, ‘It Don’t Matter If You’re Black Or White’: the statement of an ideal rather than a social fact. In Western society, white ...
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One of Michael Jackson’s hit singles has the consistent line in its chorus, ‘It Don’t Matter If You’re Black Or White’: the statement of an ideal rather than a social fact. In Western society, white has been generally portrayed as a norm against which blackness is positioned as aberrant – threatening and perhaps even monstrous. As well as telling a mini-story familiar from teen horror, Michael Jackson’s music video for his song ‘Thriller’ invokes a number of discourses about ‘race’ and race relations in the US. Riffing on 1950s horror movies, it divides small-town America between respectable cinemagoers, fascinated and appalled by celluloid monsters, and unseen street zombies who re-colonise the night. By drawing on the xenophobia of cold war America and its continuing segregationist racial policies, ‘Thriller’, like many 1950s sci-fi movies, preaches both a fear and acceptance of ‘the Other’ outside and within society. Jackson’s own troubled relationship with chromatism forms a further context for readings of the video, as does his position in both black and white popular music.Less

Peter Childs

Published in print: 2006-09-27

One of Michael Jackson’s hit singles has the consistent line in its chorus, ‘It Don’t Matter If You’re Black Or White’: the statement of an ideal rather than a social fact. In Western society, white has been generally portrayed as a norm against which blackness is positioned as aberrant – threatening and perhaps even monstrous. As well as telling a mini-story familiar from teen horror, Michael Jackson’s music video for his song ‘Thriller’ invokes a number of discourses about ‘race’ and race relations in the US. Riffing on 1950s horror movies, it divides small-town America between respectable cinemagoers, fascinated and appalled by celluloid monsters, and unseen street zombies who re-colonise the night. By drawing on the xenophobia of cold war America and its continuing segregationist racial policies, ‘Thriller’, like many 1950s sci-fi movies, preaches both a fear and acceptance of ‘the Other’ outside and within society. Jackson’s own troubled relationship with chromatism forms a further context for readings of the video, as does his position in both black and white popular music.

Diversión contends that our understanding of the Cuban diaspora is lacking not in seriousness, but in play. Against the melancholia, anger, and pain that have defined dominant characterizations of ...
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Diversión contends that our understanding of the Cuban diaspora is lacking not in seriousness, but in play. Against the melancholia, anger, and pain that have defined dominant characterizations of Cuban America, Laguna provides an affective complement for understanding this community by insisting on the centrality of ludic popular culture for a diaspora that has completely transformed in the last twenty-five years. The majority of Cuban America is now made up of arrivals since the 1990s and the US-born generation—two segments that have received little attention in cultural studies scholarship. Diversión examines these generational shifts and tensions through readings of a wide range of playful popular culture forms originating in Miami and Cuba from the 1970s through the 2010s. These include the standup of comedians like Guillermo Alvarez Guedes and Robertico, festivals like Cuba Nostalgia, a form of media distribution on the island called el paquete, and the viral social media content of Los Pichy Boys. By unpacking this archive, Laguna explores our complex, often fraught attachments to popular culture and the way it can challenge and reify normative ideologies—especially in relation to politics and race. Transnational in his approach, Laguna argues that this at times ephemeral archive of diversión is crucial for understanding not only the diaspora, but increasingly, life on the island.Less

Diversión : Play and Popular Culture in Cuban America

Albert Sergio Laguna

Published in print: 2017-07-18

Diversión contends that our understanding of the Cuban diaspora is lacking not in seriousness, but in play. Against the melancholia, anger, and pain that have defined dominant characterizations of Cuban America, Laguna provides an affective complement for understanding this community by insisting on the centrality of ludic popular culture for a diaspora that has completely transformed in the last twenty-five years. The majority of Cuban America is now made up of arrivals since the 1990s and the US-born generation—two segments that have received little attention in cultural studies scholarship. Diversión examines these generational shifts and tensions through readings of a wide range of playful popular culture forms originating in Miami and Cuba from the 1970s through the 2010s. These include the standup of comedians like Guillermo Alvarez Guedes and Robertico, festivals like Cuba Nostalgia, a form of media distribution on the island called el paquete, and the viral social media content of Los Pichy Boys. By unpacking this archive, Laguna explores our complex, often fraught attachments to popular culture and the way it can challenge and reify normative ideologies—especially in relation to politics and race. Transnational in his approach, Laguna argues that this at times ephemeral archive of diversión is crucial for understanding not only the diaspora, but increasingly, life on the island.

This introductory chapter demonstrates how the present state of nineteenth-century American literary studies is experiencing a renewed vitality. A surge in critical attention to the historical and ...
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This introductory chapter demonstrates how the present state of nineteenth-century American literary studies is experiencing a renewed vitality. A surge in critical attention to the historical and social production of space and place has begun to denaturalize what constitutes “America” itself, undoing its presumed homogeneity and its self-evident configuration in space. Critical attention to other cultural currents that transcend national borders is generating a new map of “America”—one which perceives it as both an agent and object of globalization. The book generally aims to develop ways of reading an “American literature” in motion, specifically working in the “minor” fields of critical race and ethnic studies, feminist and gender studies, labor studies, and queer/sexuality studies.Less

Introduction : On Moving Ground

Dana Luciano

Published in print: 2014-08-15

This introductory chapter demonstrates how the present state of nineteenth-century American literary studies is experiencing a renewed vitality. A surge in critical attention to the historical and social production of space and place has begun to denaturalize what constitutes “America” itself, undoing its presumed homogeneity and its self-evident configuration in space. Critical attention to other cultural currents that transcend national borders is generating a new map of “America”—one which perceives it as both an agent and object of globalization. The book generally aims to develop ways of reading an “American literature” in motion, specifically working in the “minor” fields of critical race and ethnic studies, feminist and gender studies, labor studies, and queer/sexuality studies.

With the railroad’s arrival in the late nineteenth century, immigrants of all colors rushed to the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, transforming the region into a booming international hub of economic and ...
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With the railroad’s arrival in the late nineteenth century, immigrants of all colors rushed to the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, transforming the region into a booming international hub of economic and human activity. Following the stream of Mexican, Chinese, and African American migration, Julian Lim presents a fresh study of the multiracial intersections of the borderlands, where diverse peoples crossed multiple boundaries in search of new economic opportunities and social relations. However, as these migrants came together in ways that blurred and confounded elite expectations of racial order, both the United States and Mexico resorted to increasingly exclusionary immigration policies in order to make the multiracial populations of the borderlands less visible within the body politic, and to remove them from the boundaries of national identity altogether. Using a variety of English- and Spanish-language primary sources from both sides of the border, Lim’s transnational study reveals how a borderlands region that has traditionally been defined by Mexican-Anglo relations was in fact shaped by a diverse population that came together dynamically through work and play, in the streets and in homes, through war and marriage, and in the very act of crossing the border.Less

Porous Borders : Multiracial Migrations and the Law in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands

Julian Lim

Published in print: 2017-11-13

With the railroad’s arrival in the late nineteenth century, immigrants of all colors rushed to the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, transforming the region into a booming international hub of economic and human activity. Following the stream of Mexican, Chinese, and African American migration, Julian Lim presents a fresh study of the multiracial intersections of the borderlands, where diverse peoples crossed multiple boundaries in search of new economic opportunities and social relations. However, as these migrants came together in ways that blurred and confounded elite expectations of racial order, both the United States and Mexico resorted to increasingly exclusionary immigration policies in order to make the multiracial populations of the borderlands less visible within the body politic, and to remove them from the boundaries of national identity altogether. Using a variety of English- and Spanish-language primary sources from both sides of the border, Lim’s transnational study reveals how a borderlands region that has traditionally been defined by Mexican-Anglo relations was in fact shaped by a diverse population that came together dynamically through work and play, in the streets and in homes, through war and marriage, and in the very act of crossing the border.

Chapter Two explains how maize has been racialized in two distinct manners: singularly as “la raza maíz,” an emblem for indigenous or marginal peoples in Mexico, and in the plural, as with the ...
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Chapter Two explains how maize has been racialized in two distinct manners: singularly as “la raza maíz,” an emblem for indigenous or marginal peoples in Mexico, and in the plural, as with the fifty-nine “razas de maíz” that are a current popular and scientific concern in that country.Less

Maize : An Ethnohistory

John HartiganJr.

Published in print: 2017-10-27

Chapter Two explains how maize has been racialized in two distinct manners: singularly as “la raza maíz,” an emblem for indigenous or marginal peoples in Mexico, and in the plural, as with the fifty-nine “razas de maíz” that are a current popular and scientific concern in that country.